November 2010 - BC Hydro

4.0 TESTING LANDSCAPE HYPOTHESES
Duncan Dam Reservoir Archaeological Overview Assessment Final Report
The Pre-Contact Human Land Settlement Models outlined in Section 3 serve as the explicit
bases for identifying where archaeological remains might have accumulated in the reservoir
landscape, where they might be visible surficially in exposed stratigraphic and geomorphological
contexts and from which non-mathematical archaeological interpretations can be made.
4.1 Sampling Rationale
Several types of inductive data retrieval have been commonly carried out in BC archaeology. By
far the most common focuses on certain classes of artifacts whose cultural significance is
assumed because of elaboration and variability in morphology. This approach is inherently
subjective and potentially circular, and has not succeeded in providing much useful information
regarding past human behaviour except in cases characterized by rich material culture.
A second, less common type of inductive approach, which characterized many large
archaeological projects in the early 1970s, is based on statistical analysis and utilizes random
sampling. This approach can provide objective and statistically representative information but its
effectiveness is likewise dependent upon large samples. Its utility also has the limitations of all
quantitative data in revealing non-quantitative spatial and temporal relationships, particularly
those relative to systemic manifestations. Experience has shown that, in the upper Columbia
River drainage area, this type of sampling is better suited for the later deductive stages in the
investigative paradigm where it can be applied to appropriate hypotheses where the data is
likely to meet its requirements, especially in terms of numerical populations.
A third inductive approach is even less common, though it is based on some of the fundamental
methodological underpinnings of archaeology as a science. This approach utilizes
independently defined components of the natural landscape such as sedimentary strata and
landforms as the framework within which to organize data. If identified properly, these
landscape components are objective and have the further great advantage of yielding both
temporal and palaeoenvironmental context that other approaches do not.
With regard to the present project, the information presented in Section 2 makes it clear that
knowledge of the late Pleistocene and Holocene landscape / biotic evolution of the Duncan
Reservoir area and related human adaptations are in a rudimentary state. In the context of an
Eagle Vision Geomatics & Archaeology Ltd. 26 November 28, 2010